


Hidden things

by serenitysolstice



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/F, I think?, but kind of sweet as well, idk this is my first fic in this fandom and its a little all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 03:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenitysolstice/pseuds/serenitysolstice
Summary: Sometimes she catches glimpses when Sam isn't paying attention. A moment shared over a glass of wine, curled up on a sofa with A Sound of Music. Blue eyes cast a sideways glance, and she catches the gentle smile on Sam's lips that her friend probably isn't even aware of.





	Hidden things

She's not atypical. Not like her brother, or Caleb, or Sam or Chloe. She doesn't have superhero like abilities, she's not special. 

Well. Joan knows she's special, obviously, in the sense that she's always telling her patients that everyone is, atypical or not. But Joan isn't special. 

Sometimes she catches glimpses, when Sam isn't paying attention. A moment shared over a glass of wine, curled up on a sofa with A Sound of Music. Blue eyes cast a sideways glance, and she catches the gentle smile on Sam's lips that her friend probably isn't even aware of. Joan's heart jolts in her chest, the fluttering in the pit of her stomach achingly familiar, though the memories are tinged with far too much betrayal to stay pleasant. 

When Sam starts to notice her reluctance to spend any real time together, the soft hand on her shoulder almost burns. When she begins to think there might actually be something between them - the tender gazes feel too frequent, and there's no way that Sam can fall asleep ten minutes into the new Star Trek movie, red hair tickling Joan's cheek - she recites every poor decision, every mistake, every lie and betrayal of her own in the past eighteen months, as though that has the power to kill the ache that plagues her chest. 

Chloe catches on quickly. She knows the moment Chloe can hear the itemized list of her failings, because she pretends she needs help wine shopping for their board game night, and drags her to the supermarket, leaving Sam in an apron in the kitchen, hair tied in a high ponytail, still fighting with the hand whisk. 

"What on Earth are you doing?" She asks in between rows of bottles and tin cans full of cheap beer. Joan keeps her eyes on the shelf in front of her.

"What do you mean?" She replies. She doesn't trust herself to meet Chloe's eyes.

"I thought we were past all this. Not everything is your fault, you know. You must know that."

"Chloe, I can't always help my thoughts." Chloe scoffs.

"Of course I know that Joan. But I know the difference between a genuine thought that pops into existance out of nowhere, and actively punishing yourself. I've been listening to your thoughts for far longer than I should, remember?" Joan knows this is the wrong place for this conversation, someone could overhear them, but there's no way she can bring this back to Sam's house-

"Sam? This is...about Sam? What about her?" Joan wishes she had learned how to control her thoughts around Chloe by now, because she knows her brain is still so impossibly scrambed when it comes to the time traveller. She hears Chloe's intake of breath, and the exhale that sounds more like laughter.

"I don't know." Chloe says aloud, a grin in her voice. "Seems pretty clear cut to me. You like her, and you're afraid of what that might mean. You don't think you deserve love in any form, and you still aren't quite over everything that's passed between the two of you. You feel guilty." Joan exhales, and turns towards the telepath, excuses already on her tongue, but Chlor just shrugs. "Sorry. You're just so easy to hear now, I have to keep turning you down constantly."

"Well, I don't think- I mean, it isn't like- Yes. I suppose you're right." Joan replies, resigned. "I'm sorry Chloe. I never meant for you to have to deal with my - my everything." She hates that she can't be angry with Chloe, hates that she can't ignore feeling this way, hates that she can't quite get the nagging voice in her head to stop sounding so like her mother-

"Okay, that's quite enough of that." Chloe says decisively. A dark arm reaches forward and plucks a bottle of white from under Joan's gaze. "We're going to buy two bottles of this stuff, and the chocolate chips that Sam requested - god that guilty attraction thing you do when I say her name has got to stop - and we're going to finish baking cookies, play Settlers of Catan and have an honest to gods girls night in, or so help me I will psychoanalyze you in the middle of this supermarket."

Joan doesn't know how to respond to a Chloe that is more than prepared to tell her off like that, but she knows her pathetic guilt and apologies aren't going unnoticed, if the bar of very dark chocolate Chloe hands her in the car is anything to go by. She should have tried to make friends years ago.

"Probably, yeah." Chloe says with a laugh. "But you got me now. No self flagellation when I'm here, got it?" She can't fight her smile, nor keep the amusement out of her voice, and she's not entirely sure that she wants to.

"Got it."

That doesn't mean fighting the weeks of negative reinforcement is easy. Joan can't quite relax the way that she wants to - Sam will laugh, or shout excitedly, or place a hand on Joan's shoulder as she goes to refill her wine glass, and her heart will burst in her chest before her head can catch up with all the ways she has, and will continue to, disappoint her friend. Then she remembers Chloe, and frantically tries to focus on the game in front of her. Not exactly fighting the self loathing, but repression has always been a more immediate solution for Joan, she's self aware enough to know.

When Sam asks quietly if Joan can stay the night, she wishes for the first time that she has Chloe's ability. Not genuinely, she dreads to think of all the information she'd learn that she shouldn't, and doesn't, want to know. But she wishes she could tell Sam's motivations for wanting her there. And it's not like Chloe will give her anything.

"No, I won't." The brunette whispers when Sam disappears to the bathroom. "This dance the two of you do is none of my business, and I'm certainly not going to help you spy on each other."

"No, I'd never ask you to." She says, but she knows her thoughts are elsewhere, knows Chloe knows that she's said too much, because they don't talk about the elephant in the room for the rest of the night. Even when Sam asks her why she's distracted, Joan finds she doesn't have much she can say. She finishes a bottle of wine to herself that night, and falls asleep in Sam's spare room with hope in her heart and regret on her tongue.

Sam's touches become more frequent, linger longer. They spend more and more time one on one. Joan doesn't stop listing every reason why they could never work, but she develops counter arguments to herself. She draws up a pros and cons list, stored on the inside of the cereal cupboard with boxes of wheatabix and a loaf of bread - she never has people over so it's safe from prying eyes. She updates the list as time passes; Sam expressed genuine fear of relationships when Mark left, Darwin likes me almost as much as Sam, We cannot talk about the possibility of aliens, She called me babe in the office accidentally - that last one has her still blushing when she thinks about it a week later. Like everything she does, Joan takes to obsessing over this list; it's so balanced that every entry gets a score for weighting, and it's still fairly even. She wonders if Sam does something similar; Joan knows she's taking this too far, and she's still far more impulsive than Sam.

Or maybe Sam isn't interested. Joan tries not to think about that, ignores the heartache that feels more like resignation than true sadness, and focuses on the twice a week dinner at Sam's. It crosses her mind that they probably shouldn't spend quite so much time together, they've become such a feature in each others lives.

It isn't until Sam lends Joan a dress to go to a ball of sorts - an evening spent wining and dining with the people invested in the success of their branch of the AM - that something finally clicks in her mind. They're already going to the ball together; it seemed prudent given that Sam still rarely drives if she has the choice, but Joan knocks on her door five minutes late, a hastily decided upon bouquet of red carnations, lavender and irises in the center. Her palms sweat; she hates the pause before the impact of a decision, the uncertainty in the moment. She dries her hands on her black slacks. When Sam opens the door, her face splits open in wonder, and she leans forward to kiss Joan's cheek. It's all she can do to stay standing, a hot flush spreading across her cheeks. She hands the flowers to Sam, who accepts them with a warm smile.

"I'll have to find somewhere to put these before we go, come in!" Joan does. It takes her a minute to realise that Sam doesn't actually own a vase, and the thought has her heart racing. If she's never received flowers before, is she going to know what Joan means? Sam leaves the jug with the flowers on her coffee table, the blue in the middle the brightest colour in the room, and joins her in the hallway.

"Sorry about that." She says, almost breathless. "I suppose I'll have to get a vase, won't I?" She smiles up at Joan, before glancing away, cheeks pink.

"Yes, sorry, I didn't think- that is, I didn't know you wouldn't have one." Sam takes her arm as they leave the house.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?" Her heart in her throat, and her tongue made of lead, it takes her a second to form a reasonable answer.

"It felt like I should." She replies finally. The tip of her tongue burns with the weight behind her words, and she hopes Sam can tell.

The ball is good, Joan supposes. Outside of explaining a new research concept or two to the suits from DC, the pairs keeps to their own band of representatives and, mostly, to each other. Music drifts through the air like a warm breeze, and she's more than a little tipsy where she'd caught a glimpse of Ellie and prepared for a conversation, but the vice director keeps her distance. 

"Have I told you how nice you look?" she asks quietly, her eyes still on the room at large. 

"You have." Sam replies. "But I'm not going to tell you off if you want to again." She can hear the smile in Sam's voice, and it relaxes her. 

"You look wonderful, Sam." It doesn't feel like enough to describe the dryness of her throat when she looks at Sam in the simple green and black dress. She wonders if they look like a couple. 

"You look very nice too, Joan." Sam turns towards her, and lifts a hand to smooth out the open collar of her white shirt. "You should dress up more often." 

"The suit isn't too much?" She asks, hand twisting into her trouser pockets. It had been sitting in her wardrobe, untouched since the last AM ball she attended, half a decade ago. 

"Oh the contrary," Sam's voice lowers, like she's sharing a secret. "I think you look rather dashing." She winks a bright blue eye. Joan swears she's forgotten how to breathe. Sam's gaze is soft, and she looks at Joan like... 

"Sam, I-" 

Like Joan's her whole world. 

But Sam silences her, and leads them out of the busy room, onto a balcony. They aren't alone, but it's significantly more private. Her gut twists, and her hands are once again slick with sweat, but Sam is smiling, and though she fidgets as much as Joan does, she doesn't flicker and she doesn't leave. 

"How long have you known?" She asks instead. They lean against the marble rail that looks over the extensive hotel gardens, dotted with lanterns in flowerbeds and handing from trees. 

"How long have you?" she counters. It's not meant to be an accusation, she doesn't blame Sam for not being able to do what she was too afraid of. 

"After Mark-" Sam begins. Joan winces; she seems to recognize the poor beginning, and tries again. "When we started working together, everything got so comfortable so quickly. I didn't know how... I didn't want to rock the boat." 

"No, me either." Joan admits. "I'm still not sure how far we should take this." Se feels Sam's gaze flicker for a moment from her eyes, sees the red head swallow thickly. 

"Pretend." She says, playing with her fingertips. "Pretend for a second that we don't have a rocky history, that Mark never fit into the equation, that I was never your patient. Pretend that this is just you, and me, and whatever weird attraction has been sitting between us for months. How far would you take this?" It's the most she's ever heard Sam say without the threat of a trip hanging over her head, and Joan finds she doesn't have the capacity for lying right now. She reaches a hand to brush a red curl away from Sam's cheek, and runs her thumb across the soft skin at her neck. 

"As far as I could." she whispers, afraid her voice will break and betray her at the last minute. Sam's eyes flicker down for a second to her lips. Her chest feels so full it hurts, but there are

no more nerves, theres no guilt right now. Her thoughts are quiet. Joan lowers her head, and kisses Sam. 

The night comes, several days later, where Joan is plagued with guilt once more. Her lungs fill with the feeling, she's sure she could drown in it, and be done with the never ending cycle of her thoughts. Instead of letting herself succumb to the tidal wave, Joan picks up her phone, and calls Sam. Because Sam is special enough to more than make up for Joan's inadequacy. And when her demons start on her for that, too - she shouldn't be depending on another person to fight them off, after all - she shrugs, makes them both another hot chocolate and they watch another film. They don't have to fight everything all at once; they have all the time in the world. 


End file.
